Archive for April, 2009

Wall Street greed, corruption and pay to play politics. Tension over pensions. Geithner presses for electronic money trading network. Cost/benefit of living dips into red for record number of Americans. More tax money than you can imagine lost to off-shore havens. Banks charging more for services while policy-makers favor Wall Street over home owners. Pelosi moves to create Wall Street oversight commission. Union activities spotted at Wal-Mart. Banks acting badly. Women disadvantaged by immigration policy. Bear Stearns deal not looking good.

In fact, you never know when somebody is going to come at you with their arms spreading outwards and their chin tilting to one side to avoid crunching faces. And when they get their arms around you, you never know how long it is supposed to last. Or where exactly you are supposed to put your arms and hands. It can be hell.

Coleman/Franken recount update and talking about torture: examining the “margin of error” argument, Coleman lawyer not big on equal protection, federal campaign finance complaint filed against Coleman, Coleman asks for and receives another delay in seating a Minnesota senator, report and video show how America treats those in its power, examining the efficacy of torture, Obama administration holds out possibility of prosecution, Bob Woodward says this story isn’t going away, appeals court rules Guantanamo Bay detainees are not “persons,” and CIA prisoners still missing.

When I contacted Steve Kelley’s campaign director to arrange a meeting with Steve and Sophie Kelley, I suggested Tuesday. She responded that they had arranged their schedule to meet me on Wednesday. When I read her response, the part that I saw was, “They had arranged their schedule to meet with you at Pizza Nea, 306 Hennepin Ave…” The part that I missed was, “…Wednesday at 7.”

When we last saw our insipid heroine-in-her-own-mind, she was proposing legislation to keep America safe for the dollar and joining her fellow party members in flirting with sedition. Reaction to both behaviors continued long after our last carnival.

Editing requires the strange ability to stand in the place of the audience and the author simultaneously. As an editor reads a piece, whether it be a story or a journal article, they have to understand what the author intended to say without losing track of not just what one individual reader will take away, but how the piece will come across to readers with varying experiences and levels of understanding. The outsider’s perspective shows them the weaknesses in the piece, while the insider’s perspective allows them to make suggestions for improvement that are consistent with the author’s intent.

Environment and ecology edition: Status of the Wilkins ice shelf, how not to solve global warming, Obama administration policy on climate, U.S. wind power capacity, turning Colombia into a desert, too much water in some parts of India, too little in others, flame-retardant in coastal waters, the toxic byproducts of water purification, plastic found in leatherback turtles, traveling off the grid, enjoying the birds of Belize, saving Madagascar, a solar cooker made of cardboard, concrete mixed with environmental impact in mind,avoiding 1,4-dioxane, reusing steel shipping containers, environmental toxicity and concentrations of color, an interesting interactive map of U.S. factory farms, Germany bans GM corn, treating for bee colony collapse, and NASA’s list of air-purifying house plants.

So I arrived at the coffee shop not entirely sure why I was there or what I was going to do or even exactly whom I was meeting. I had a vague idea of who Lizzie was, but it would be all too easy to get it wrong and mistake her for someone else or someone else for her. She was small, had red hair, and would be wearing black, as most of my students seemed to. Among the young women in the coffee shop, this ruled out…almost no one.